Winterbottom on The Road to Guantanamo for Everyman
diane mckaye | 08.03.2006 18:43 | London | World
Image from 'The Road to Guantanamo'
Blending interviews, news footage and re-enactments, ‘The Road to Guantanamo’ tells the story of three British Muslims – dubbed ‘the Tipton Three’ after their hometown in the West Midlands – and their two-year ordeal at the notorious detention camp for suspected terrorists on Cuba.
Whilst holidaying in Pakistan in 2001, the ‘Tipton Three’ got sidetracked and volunteered to travel to Afghanistan upon answering the call of a local imam. Arriving in Kandahar on the first night of US bombing raids, they were captured by the Northern Alliance and handed over to the U.S. government who flew them to the prison camp in Cuba. In Guantanamo Bay, they were never tried for any crime and remained in horrific conditions, tortured, forced to strip naked and shackled in painful positions until the British government secured their release.
Upon their return to the UK, the Tipton Three then filed a lawsuit against the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believing their torture had been a deliberate and foreseeable action to flout or evade both the US constitution and international law. On release of their 115-page dossier of their treatment at Guantanamo, horrified representatives of the Red Cross claimed that if the allegations were true, they would be tantamount to war crimes.
Comments director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, A Cock & Bull Story), “What's most shocking isn't the torture or the shackling, it's that Guantanamo Bay exists at all.”
Screening of ‘The Road to Guantanamo’ with director Q&A takes place at 3.30pm on Saturday 11 March 2006, with screening only at 4pm on Sunday 12 March at the Everyman Cinema Club, Hampstead (diagonally opp Hampstead tube). Tickets £10 – to book, please visit www.everymancinema.com or call the Box Office on 0870 066 4777.
diane mckaye
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http://www.everymancinema.com
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